“We are Yao people,” Lotus, a woman perhaps ten years older than I, began. “In antiquity, Gao Xin, a kind and benevolent Han emperor, was under attack by an evil and ambitious general. Panhu—a mangy, unwanted dog—heard of the emperor’s problems and challenged the general to battle. He won and was given the hand of one of the emperor’s daughters. Panhu was happy, but his betrothed was embarrassed. She did not want to marry a dog. Still, her duty was clear, so she and Panhu fled into the mountains, where she gave birth to twelve children, the very first Yao people. When they grew up, they built a town called Qianjiadong—the Thousand-Family Grotto.”
This first part of the story finished, another woman, Willow, took up the chant. Next to me, Snow Flower shivered. Was she remembering our daughter days, when we listened to Elder Sister and her sworn sisters or Mama and Aunt as they sang this story of our beginnings?
“Could there be a place of so much water and such good land?” Willow asked in the song. “Could it be safer from intruders when it was hidden from sight, the only access through a cavernous tunnel? Qianjiadong held much magic for the Yao people. But such a paradise cannot remain undisturbed forever.”
I began to hear verses sung by women sitting around other fires in the bowl. The men should have stopped our chanting, for certainly the rebels could hear us. But the purity of the women’s voices gave us all strength and courage.
Willow continued. “Many generations later, in the Yuan dynasty, someone from the local government, bold in his explorations, walked through the tunnel and found the Yao people. Everyone was dressed resplendently. Everyone was fat from the wealth of the land. Hearing of this tantalizing place, the emperor—greedy and without gratitude—demanded high taxes from the Yao people.”
Just as the first snowflakes fell on our hair and faces, Snow Flower linked her arm through mine and raised her voice to recount the next part of the story. “Why should we pay? the Yao people wanted to know.” Her voice trilled with the cold. “On top of the mountain that blocked their village from intruders, they built a parapet from stone. The emperor sent three tax collectors into the cavern to negotiate. They did not come out. The emperor sent another three—”
The women around our fire joined in. “They did not come out.”
“The emperor sent a third contingent.” Snow Flower’s voice gathered power. I had never heard her this way. Her voice floated out clear and beautiful across the mountains. If the rebels had heard her, they would have run away, fearing a fox spirit.
“They did not come out,” we women called our response.
“The emperor sent troops. A bloody siege occurred. Many Yao people—men, women, and children—died. What to do? What to do? The headman took a water buffalo horn and divided it into twelve pieces. These he gave to different groups and told them to scatter and live.”
“Scatter and live,” we women repeated.
“This is how the Yao people came to be in the valleys and in the mountains, in this province and in others,” Snow Flower wound down.
Plum Blossom, the youngest woman in our group, finished the tale. “They say that in five hundred years, Yao people, wherever they are, will walk through the cavern again, put the horn back together, and rebuild our enchanted home. That time comes to us soon.”
It had been many years since I’d heard the story, and I didn’t know what to think. The Yao had believed they were secure, hidden behind the safety of the mountain, their parapet, and the secret cavern, but they were not. Now I wondered who would come into our mountainous bowl first and what would happen when they did. The Taipings might try to win us over, while the Great Hunan Army might mistake us for rebels. Either way, would we fight a losing battle and be like our ancestors? Would we ever be able to return home? I considered the Taipings, who—like the Yao people—had revolted against high taxes and rebelled against the feudal system. Were they right? Should we join them? Were we violating our ancestors by not honoring that?
That night none of us slept.
Winter
THE FOUR FAMILIES FROM JINTIAN STAYED TOGETHER UNDER
the protection of the large tree with its spreading branches, but the ordeal didn’t end—not after two nights or even a week. We suffered worse snow that year than had been in our province in anyone’s memory. We endured freezing temperatures at every moment. Our breaths became clouds of steam that were swallowed by the mountain air. We were always hungry. Each family hoarded its food, unsure of how long we would be away. Coughs, colds, and sore throats swept back and forth across the camp. Men, women, and children continued to die from these ailments and from the relentlessly frigid nights.
My feet—and those of most of the women in these mountains—had been badly hurt during our escape. We did not have privacy, so we had to unwrap, clean, and rewrap our feet in front of the men. And we overcame our embarrassment about other body functions, learning to do our business behind a tree or in the common latrine, once it was dug. But unlike most women up here, I was without my family. I desperately missed my eldest son and the rest of my children. I worried constantly about my husband, his brothers, my sisters-in-law, their children, even the servants—and if they had reached the protection of Yongming City.
It took almost a month for my feet to heal enough to walk on them again without restarting the bleeding. At the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, I decided I would go every day in search of my brothers and their families and Elder Sister and her family. I hoped they were safe up here, but how could I locate them when we were ten thousand people spread out across the mountains? Each day I draped one of the quilts over my shoulders and gingerly set out, always marking my progress, knowing that if I didn’t find my way back to Snow Flower’s family I would surely perish.
One day—perhaps two weeks into my searching—I came across a group from Getan Village huddled under a rocky overhang. I asked if they knew Elder Sister.
“Yes, yes, we do!” one of the women chirped.
“We were separated from her on the first night,” her friend said. “Tell her, if you find her, to come be with us. We can shelter one more family.”
Yet another—the one who appeared to be their leader—cautioned that they only had space for people from Getan, in case I got any ideas.
“I understand,” I said. “But if you see her, could you tell her I’m looking for her? I’m her sister.”
“Her sister? Are you the one known as Lady Lu?”
“Yes,” I responded warily. If they thought I had anything to give them, they were mistaken.
“Men came looking for you.”
My stomach jumped at these words. “Who were they? My brothers?”
The women looked at each other, then at me, sizing me up. Their leader spoke again. “They were mindful not to say who they were. You know how things are up here. One among them was the master. I would say he had a good build. His shoes and clothes were of good quality. His hair came down on his forehead like this.”
My husband! It had to be!
“What did he say? Where is he now? How—”
“We don’t know, but if you are Lady Lu, know that a man is looking for you. Don’t worry.” The woman reached up and patted my hand. “He said he would come back.”
But as much as I searched, I never heard another story like this. Soon I came to believe that those women had used their own bitterness against me, but when I returned to the spot where I had met them, a different set of families huddled under the rocky shelf. After that discovery, I went back to my camp feeling nothing but deep despair. Supposedly I was Lady Lu, but looking at me no one would know it. My lavender silk with the expertly embroidered chrysanthemum pattern was filthy and torn, while my shoes were blackened with my blood and scuffed from daily wear in the outdoors. I could only imagine what the sun, wind, and cold were doing to my face. From my age of eighty, I can look back now and say with certainty that I was a frivolous and stupid young woman to think of vanity when the lack of food and the unrelenting cold wer
e our true villains.
Snow Flower’s husband became a hero to our small band of people. By being in an unclean profession, he did many things that needed to be done, without complaint and without thanks. He was born under the sign of the rooster—handsome, critical, aggressive, and deadly if required. It was in his nature to look to the earth for survival; he could hunt, clean an animal, cook it over an open fire, and dry the skins for us to use for warmth. He could carry heavy loads of firewood and water. He never tired. Up here, he wasn’t a polluter; he was a guardian and champion. Snow Flower was proud of him for being such a leader, and I was—and am—forever grateful that his actions kept me alive.
Aiya! But that rat mother of his! She was always skulking and slinking about. In these most desperate circumstances, she continued to denounce and complain, even over the most unimportant things. She always sat closest to the fire. She never released the quilt she had been handed that first night and at every opportunity took one of the others until we demanded it back. She hid food in her sleeves, pulling it out when she thought we weren’t looking to shove bits of burnt flesh into her mouth. You often hear that rats are clannish. We saw this every day. She constantly wheedled and manipulated her son, but she didn’t have to. He did what any filial son would do. He obeyed. So when that old woman went on and on about how she needed more food than her daughter-in-law, he made sure that she, and not his wife, ate. Being filial myself, I couldn’t argue with the logic of that, so Snow Flower and I began to share my portion. Then one day, after we had reached the bottom of our rice sack, the butcher’s mother said that the eldest son shouldn’t be given food that the butcher had hunted or scavenged.
“It’s too precious to waste on someone so weak,” she said. “When he dies, we will all be relieved.”
I looked at the boy. He was eleven that year, the same age as my eldest son. He stared at his grandmother with sunken eyes, too pathetic to fight for himself. Certainly Snow Flower would say something on his behalf. He was the first son after all. But my old same did not love that boy the way she should have. Her eyes, even in that terrible moment when he was being consigned to certain death, were not on him but on her second son. As clever, resilient, and strong as the second boy was, I could not let this happen to an eldest son. It went against all tradition. How would I answer my ancestors when they asked how I had let the child die? How would I greet that poor boy when I saw him in the afterworld? As the eldest son, he deserved more food than any of us, including the butcher. So I began sharing my portion with Snow Flower and her son. When the butcher realized what was happening, he slapped the boy and then his wife.
“That food is for Lady Lu.”
Before either of them could respond, his rat mother jumped in. “Son, why give food to that woman anyway? She is just a stranger to us. We must think of our own blood: you, your second son, and me.”
No mention, of course, of the first son or Spring Moon, both of whom had survived this far on scraps and had become frailer with each passing day.
But for once the butcher didn’t buckle under his mother’s pressure.
“Lady Lu is our guest. If I bring her back alive, there may be a reward.”
“Money?” his mother asked.
Such a typical rat question. That woman could not hide her greed and acquisitiveness.
“There are things Master Lu can do for us that go beyond money.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed to slits as she considered this. Before she could speak, I said, “If there is to be a reward, I will need a larger portion. Otherwise”—and here I twisted my face into one of the spoiled grimaces I remembered from my father-in-law’s concubines—“I will say that I found no hospitality from this family, only avarice, inconsideration, and vulgarity.”
Such a tremendous risk I took that day! The butcher could have thrown me out of the group right then. Instead, despite his mother’s never-ending complaints, I received the largest amount of food, which I was able to share with Snow Flower, her eldest son, and Spring Moon. Oh, but how hungry we were. We became little more than corpses—lying still all day, our eyes closed, breathing as shallowly as possible, trying to harness whatever resources we had left. Maladies considered mild at home continued to reduce our numbers. With little food, energy, hot cups of tea, or fortifying doses of herbs, no one had the strength to fight these nuisances. As more succumbed, few among us had the strength to move the bodies.
Snow Flower’s eldest son sought my side whenever possible. He was unloved, true, but he was not as stupid as his family believed. I thought of the day that Snow Flower and I had gone to the Temple of Gupo to pray for sons and how we wanted them to have elegant and refined tastes. I could see these things lay dormant in the boy, though he had received no formal education. I could not help him learn men’s writing, but I could repeat what I had overheard Uncle Lu teach my son. “The five things the Chinese people respect the most are Heaven, Earth, the emperor, parents, and teachers. . . .” When I ran out of lessons I could remember, I told him a didactic tale carried by the women in our county about a second son who becomes a mandarin and returns home to his family, but I changed it to fit this poor boy’s circumstances.
“A first son runs by the river,” I began. “He is as green as bamboo. He knows nothing of life. He lives with his mama, baba, younger brother, and younger sister. The younger brother will follow his father’s trade. The younger sister will marry out. Mama’s and Baba’s eyes never rest upon their eldest son. When they do, they beat his head until it is as swollen as a melon.”
The boy shifted beside me, moving his eyes from the fire to my face as I went on.
“One day the boy goes to the place where his father keeps his money. He takes some cash and hides it in his pocket. Then he goes to where his mother keeps food. He fills a satchel with as much as he can carry. Then, without a single goodbye, he walks away from his house and through the fields. He swims across the river and walks some more.” I thought of a faraway place. “He walks all the way to Guilin. You think this journey into the mountains was hard? You think living outside in winter is hard? This is nothing. Out on the road, he had no friends, no benefactors, and only the clothes on his back. When he ran out of food and money, he survived by begging.”
The boy colored, not from the heat of the fire but from shame. He must have heard that his maternal grandparents had been reduced to this life.
“Some people say this is disreputable,” I continued, “but if it is the only way to live, then it takes great courage.”
From the other side of the fire, the butcher’s mother grunted. “You’re telling the story wrong.”
I paid no attention. I knew how the story went, but I wanted to give this child something to hold on to.
“The boy wandered through the streets of Guilin, looking for people who were dressed as mandarins. He listened to how they spoke and shaped his mouth to make the same sounds come out. He sat outside teahouses and tried to speak to the men who entered. Only when his speech became refined did someone look his way.”
Here I broke with the story. “Boy, there are people who are kind in the world. You may not believe it, but I have met them. You should always be on the lookout for someone who can be a benefactor.”
“Like you?” he asked.
His grandmother snorted. Once again, I ignored her.
“This man took the boy in as a servant,” I resumed. “As the boy served him, the benefactor taught him everything he knew. When he could teach no more, he hired a tutor. After many years the boy, now a grown man, took the imperial exam and became a mandarin—only at the lowest level,” I added, believing that such a thing was possible even for Snow Flower’s son.
“The mandarin returned to his home village. The dog before his family home barked three times in recognition. Mama and Baba came out of the house. They did not recognize their son. The second brother came out. He did not recognize his sibling. The sister? She had married out. When he told them who he was, they kow
towed, and very shortly thereafter they asked him for favors. ‘We need a new well,’ his father said. ‘Can you hire someone to dig it for us?’ ‘I have no silk,’ his mother said. ‘Can you buy some for me?’ ‘I have taken care of our parents for many years,’ the younger brother said. ‘Will you pay me for the time I have spent?’ The mandarin remembered how badly they had treated him. He climbed back into his palanquin and went back to Guilin, where he married, had many sons, and lived a very happy life.”
“Waaa! You tell these stories and ruin an already ruined boy’s life?” The old woman spat into the fire one more time and glared at me. “You give him hope when there is none? Why do you do that?”
I knew the answer, but I would never tell it to that old rat woman. We were not under normal circumstances, I know, but away from my own family I needed someone to care for. In my mind, I saw my husband as this boy’s benefactor. Why not? If Snow Flower could help me when we were girls, couldn’t my family change this boy’s future?
SOON ANIMALS IN
the hills around us became scarce, driven from their homes by the presence of so many people or dead—as so many of us died—from the cruelty of that winter. Men—farmers all—weakened. They had brought only what they could carry; when that ran out, they and their families starved. Many husbands asked their wives to go back down the mountain for supplies. In our county, as you know, women are not to be hurt in wartime, which is why we are often sent to find food, water, or other supplies during upheavals. Harming a woman during hostilities always leads to an escalation of fighting, but neither the Taipings nor the soldiers in the Great Hunan Army were from around here. They did not know the ways of the Yao people. Besides, how were we women, weak from hunger and frail on our bound feet, to go down the mountain in winter and carry back provisions?